Delayed by Nathan Kingsly (best manga ereader txt) 📕

pinches her arm. “Owh-aha!” She waves mom’s hand away as she takes a step towards the door.

“Ms. Marone? If you don’t open the door, we will find other means to open it.”

“I’m coming,” she says while shooting me a glare. She unlocks the door and opens it wide to show the inside of the house. How can she be so flippant?

“Robertt?” I question.

“Pretty sure I said I didn’t want to see you again.”

“Not quite. You said you’d hope you never would. It’s your lucky day.”

He rolls his eyes looking tired, before glancing over again at Mia. “Knowing the circumstances, how would you like to proceed?”

Glowering over at me for a second, I bite the urge to snap at her for this charade. It’s gone on long enough. I know she’s pissed, but this is family business, not the justice systems. I’m about to say that, against my better judgment, though, as she moves her eyes to mom, her shoulders drop, and she sighs.

“It’s a misunderstanding. I thought my idiot brother was a burglar. He was in my backyard and scared me.”

“Couldn’t leave them here alone,” I explain to Robertt.

Mia scoffs. “Could have fooled me. One day back, and you’re all about family now, right?”

“I did what I thought was right, and now I know I was doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Are you going to continue shoving it in my face?”

“Yes,” she spits, her arms folded across her chest.

“You’re being petty! What? Is everyone perfect in your world or something, no one allowed to make any mistakes?”

She twists like a tilt-a-world, arms sprung from her sides, fingers spread wide, and her cheeks fire red, “Like I know what perfect looks like! Since dad died, all you’ve been doing is making mistakes. You think that after one night you can make up for six years? Well, this may be breaking news to you, but I don’t have an on-and-off-switch. I can’t forgive you for all that’s happened, and that’s without including what's happened in the last few days.” Her hands go down to her sides and ball up.

“How can no one grasp the torture it had thought you were dead?! For years, I’ve been trying to detach from you, knowing I couldn’t rely on you, but I could never have imagined you’d leave me hanging like that. Suddenly, faced with all the feelings I’d been trying to repress, I felt your loss for the first time since you left me here alone. This time I thought it was permanent, and I... '' She jabs her thumb into her chest, the first tears coming from her eyes.

“...was the one that felt guilty for asking you to come, as if I’d caused it. But now that you’re fine, showing up here, I should just forget it ever happened? Like one time coming through for us is going to erase all those mistakes and abandonment?” She wipes at her tears furiously, but her shoulders are shaking, the tears running like a river down her cheeks. “Fuck you, Liam. Just, fuck you.” Her hands cover up her face as she starts to cry harder, her shoulders curling in due to the weight.

I’ve never felt the weight of my own mistakes more than I do right now. I'd pushed her away and made her feel abandoned. A quick glance at my mom shows me that she feels the same. Her eyes are sad as they take in my sister. The way she's hugging herself as if she's keeping herself together. Fuck, this is not how I imagined them experiencing my absence. All this time, I thought I was causing them less pain by staying away, avoiding the chance to fail again, and now I’m faced with the reality of it. I’d done something much worse.

In four quick strides, I embrace Mia. Ignoring her angry shoves and words, I hold her tighter and whisper into her hair of my idiocy and apologize for it. There is nothing more I can do except do better from this point on. I have a lot of repair work to do to make us whole again. When Mia finally lets go and slumps into me, crying harder, I look over at my mom and hold out an arm for her. She encircles us both.

I hear both their pain reverberate inside my chest as I tug them closer. Yes, I have a lot to make up for.

Catching movement at the corner of my eye, it's Robertt closing the door. His blank expression and the shake of his head conveying the uncomfortable position we put him in. It would have been funny under normal circumstances, and I find myself repressing a laugh.

I’m not sure how long we stand like this, but it’s not until everyone has quieted with steady breathing that I release us. Mia takes steps back as soon as she’s released, wiping her face. I watch her retreating and not only to go upstairs.

A gentle hand rests on my arm, and my eyes meet my mother’s. “She needs some more time.”

“Time seems to be always against me.”

“The death of your father forced me to look at time differently.”

“Mom?” I could feel my brows creasing.

“That moment, the moment he was taken from me, time no longer felt like a line. It stopped for me that day. My clock didn't start ticking again for a long time. Instead, I trapped myself in a continuous loop of his last moments. My life divided into the time before and the time after. Then, I realized that it's not an objective thing. It moves differently for each of us. She needs time to find out when she can move on from that moment and move onto the next.”

“I’m sorry that I let it happen, mom. I should’ve … I could have done something to change it if I’d only been more careful. It’s all my fault.”

“You should have called her.”

I shake my head. “I know, but I was talking about dad.”

“Liam...what makes you